


pound of flesh (dearly bought)

by kangeiko



Series: pyrrhic victories (things better left unsaid) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Infidelity, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), So Little Time, Team Dynamics, so many issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 11:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11379279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: Tony knows the best course of action is to say nothing. Opening his mouth will just make everything worse. (When has that ever stopped him?)





	pound of flesh (dearly bought)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic isn't in the same universe/series as [waves rise to claim you](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11257329), although it did come about when I was trying to figure out the direction to go in. Ultimately, I decided that I needed the characters to be a little less bitter and a little more cooperative, and that although they all have a tendency to pick the absolute worst option out of any given list of choices and that makes great viewing, in this case that wouldn't be especially helpful.
> 
> So. I decided that if the characters had unhelpful things to say, they could do it here, in this series. So this is, I guess, the first of a series of loosely-connected ficlets of me working out the worst impulses of each of the characters before I'm able to pin them down to a more constructive course of action in the 'waves rise to claim you' universe. Tony is likely to feature heavily in them. Yes, he's my favourite, but part of the reason I like the character is because he knows just what to say to get under someone's skin. (Tony, I love you, despite your tendency to be an asshole pretty much all of the time.) Let's call this the 'unsent letters' part of therapy: things they want to say, but know would cause more harm than good.
> 
> What this isn't: this isn't a revenge fic, this isn't a fic where Steve is a bad guy, this isn't a fic where Tony is a bad guy. But everyone makes bad choices and says things in the heat of the moment, and in this instance, Tony would probably take it back if he could.
> 
> (Holy hell, they all need so much therapy, where to even start.)

His ears are ringing. Cap probably pulled that punch, though, otherwise they'd be scraping brain matter off the walls. Huh, OK, that's where his arms had got to, there they are, he's fine, he's OK. He wedges an elbow under his ribs and levers himself up. 

On the other side of the conference room, Barnes has put himself between between Rogers and everyone else, shouldering Captain Spangly Pants into a corner. Rogers is breathing hard, his face twisted into something very much like hatred. 

“Is this where someone leaps to my defence and says I had nothing to do with it? That it's not my fault and I'm just the messenger?” Tony asks lightly. He manages to get back on his feet with an effort and looks around the room. “No takers? That's a shame.” His tongue feels fat and useless in his mouth and he can taste the coppery tang of blood. He probes the inside of his cheek with his tongue and is rewarded with another burst of copper against his palate. Must have split it on the inside, at least. 

“You're a liar,” Rogers hisses, the colour still high in his cheeks. He sounds more desperate than anything else. 

“Ah, nope, sorry Cap. I'm afraid this is more along the lines of, ‘I didn't know how to tell you’.” He rubs his jaw. “Surely you have some sympathy for that defence. Given everything.” He looks sidelong at Barton, who is glaring at him from across the room. “Cat got your tongue?”

“That was completely out of order, Stark,” Barton says, and he sounds just as furious as Rogers. Huh. Without even a stake in it, would you look at that. “Why would you even -”

“Now, now,” it's an effort to shrug off the punch (mainly because he's lucky he still has his jaw, holy _fuck_ his face hurts) but he manages to roll his shoulders back and aims for an insouciant smile. “I thought we had a new policy of not having any secrets. Of ‘forgive and forget’. Isn't that right?”

Rogers is turning beet red and struggling in Barnes’s grip. “How _dare_ you!”

Well, now. He makes his way across the room slowly, around the turned-over chairs and the conference table, coming up nice and close to Rogers, who is still barely held back to Barnes. He can see the strain in Barnes’s human arm (and his metal one, a little, although Tony does good work and it is strong and flexible enough to cope with Rogers). “How dare _I_? Gee, Cap. Don't know how affairs were conducted in your day, but let me tell you, it's no easier now to keep it secret than it was then. Don't you know that the kids _always_ find out?” He's aiming for it, that look of absolute horror in Rogers’s eyes, leaving him just open enough for Tony to lean in and hiss, “Peggy Carter was a _whore._ She should have been in that car, instead of my mom. It should have been _her_.”

Rogers strains in Barnes’s arms, a horrible low moan torn from his chest, and there's a moment during which Tony thinks he might get free, might put his fist through Tony’s eggshell skull. 

But then there are arms around Tony as well, dragging him backwards, out of reach. Barton, Tony realises distantly. Fucking _Barton_. 

“OK, I think you two need to go and be in separate rooms for a bit,” Barton says loudly, dragging Tony towards the conference room door. “Barnes-”

“I have him,” Barnes says, his arms still locked around Rogers (furious, straining, inches away from exploding across the room). 

Tony makes sure to keep eye contact with Rogers on the way out, a smirk on his face. 

“OK, what the _fuck_?” Barton demands once they're outside in the corridor and he's let Tony go. Beside him, Romanov is watching Tony coolly. “What the hell was that all about? You're supposed to be reconciled! We’re supposed to be a fucking _team_!”

And they had been. All the way up to Rogers taking out “his girl” for dinner, and Tony hadn't been able to hold back. Once upon a time, he might have hesitated. Might have thought, _that's crossing a line._ But all he wants to do lately is jab at Rogers to watch him bleed.

Whatever else might have been there, whatever else might be left, it's buried too far down for Tony to access it. They're officially back as a team, and Rogers treats him with the utmost courtesy (like being polite _matters_ , like all they need to do is fake some civility and things will be back to normal). They fight together, and they live together, and sit down and break bread together. As far as anyone can see, they’re a team.

And all Tony wants is - 

It's not that.

“Oh, we’re peachy-keen,” he says instead, bitterly. He touches the bruise forming on his face and grimaces. He’ll need an ice pack. And probably concealer. The last thing the team needs is more bad publicity. (He’s willing to admit that this one’s on him, though. That’s ok, he keeps PR people on the payroll for just these occasions.) “As long as he never mentions my parents or Peggy Carter ever again. Or ‘his girl’, I guess, although that's probably a lost cause.” He can still hear the murmur of voices from inside the conference room, Barnes’s low rumble and Rogers’s answering snipe, too loud. Still angry, then. What a shame. How terrible, to not be able to do anything about the rage in your belly, the need to lash out, the feeling of betrayal. _What. A. Shame._

(A small part of him knows that he will regret this later. Knows that he will think back to the look on Rogers’s face and feel a prickling of shame. But that's later, and he can deal with that once it comes. Right now, all he can feel is the throb in his jaw and a deep, mean satisfaction.)

“Jesus Christ, listen to yourself. OK, I get it, it's a shitty situation. Everyone’s trying to deal with it, and maybe you've had a worse deal than some. But there's no call to be making up crap like that!” Barton runs a hand through his hair. “Your father and Peggy Carter did not have an affair. I've seen the files. It just didn't happen. Don't say shit like that to him, just to watch him blow up. I know you guys still have some stuff to work out, but doing shit like that _isn't helping_.”

Tony looks at him for a long moment before laughing. The movement hurts his jaw and neck. His head throbs and he can feel the spike of pain behind his eyes. A migraine, then, and headed his way fast. “Yeah, OK. I lied, so what. It was worth it to see his face. You can go and tell him the good news, I suppose. He can go back to jacking off over her picture in peace.” He can hear the bitterness in his voice and he forces himself to turn away. Fuck Barton, anyway. 

He’s almost at the exit when Romanov’s voice stops him. “It’s true. Isn't it.”

It's not a question. 

He stops with his hand on the door. _I should just leave._ Instead, he looks back over his shoulder and raises an eyebrow.

Barton’s breath whistles out of him in surprise. “ _Fuck_.” He shakes his head. “Fucking hell. It's not in the - OK. Right. How did _you_ find out?”

Tony shrugs a little as he turns around, pasting a smile on his face. The pain behind his eyes intensifies, a sharp spike to accompany the throb in his jaw. “When I visited her in the nursing home. She thought I was Howard.” He pauses. “It's why I stopped going. Why I didn't go to the funeral.”

Romanov looks thoughtful. Barton looks like he's going to be sick. 

Tony frowns a little, hesitating. “You can tell him it was a lie,” he says finally. “Like you said, it's not in the files.” You can lie to him, he doesn't say. He can’t quite bring himself to undo the last few minutes, but if they choose to do it, he won’t stop them.

“Because you fucking _wiped_ them. _Fuck._ ” Barton sounds like he's having a crisis of his own. 

“I'm sorry,” Romanov offers after a moment. “It can't have been easy.” 

He's waiting for her to say something else, to insist that he talks it out with Rogers - that they ‘clear the air’ between them, or other such rot - but all she does is hold his gaze steadily. 

“We need alcohol,” Barton decides instead and barges into his space, one hand on the doorknob, the other landing awkwardly around Tony’s shoulders. “We all need some fucking alcohol.”

“I don't drink anymore,” Tony says, knowing he's being deliberately difficult, and Barton slumps against him. His forehead bumps painfully against the side of Tony’s head.

“... shit.” He looks so frustrated. 

There's another pause. “I could probably do with a round down at the gym, though,” Tony says. His head throbs painfully, the words dragged out of him. Barton feels heavy and warm against him, the rigid lines of his uniform pressing into the soft fabric of Tony’s suit, into the bruises beneath. 

“You guys go on ahead, I'll stay here,” Romanov offers, turning away. Back to where Barnes has Rogers contained. 

Tony lets Barton lead him away, through the winding corridors of the compound and down to the gym. He’ll have some paracetamol and his head will be fine. Romanov and Barnes will handle Rogers. If she decides to lie to him, it's on her. Tony’s conscience is clear.

Somewhat. Almost. He knows that Rogers won't see Sharon Carter again and the knowledge makes him simultaneously guilty and pleased. It should cost Rogers _something_ , he thinks. He's the only one of them who had come out of this debacle with a net gain (he doesn't think the loss of whatever it was between them counted for much to Rogers; not like it had mattered for Tony) and a not-so-small part of Tony is satisfied that he can extract this small pound of flesh. (Not Sharon, that wouldn't have cost him anything like what Tony wants to take from him. But the memory of Peggy? That's another matter.)

Tony thinks about what it would have been like, if things had turned out differently. If the affair hadn't ended, and his Aunt Peggy had been in that car. If all he'd had to deal with is the loss of an aunt he'd quite liked, and a father he'd never been especially close to. 

Barton’s arm around his shoulders is heavy, so heavy, and his head throbs with each step.

(He wonders if it would have made any difference to Rogers, knowing that his best friend had murdered his girl.)

*

fin

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory note to say that I love Peggy and it hurt me a whole lot to have anyone (especially Tony) dislike her.


End file.
